


never to delay the inevitable

by YoyoString



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Barricade Day, Countdown, Kissing, Lots of it, M/M, THEY ALL DIE BUT YALL ALREADY KNOW THAT SO WHATEVER, and i hate it, augh i'm just a fool trying my best, be prepared for too many run-on sentences rip, because like YEAH there, brief religious reference, but there is MORE to him, exr - Freeform, he is also. gay, his character, is a LOT of alcohol involved with, it's only canon divergence in the tiniest sense i'm just feelin angsty, listen. listen, than ALCOHOL, the fandom likes to define grantaire by his, they're idiots by the way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-21 06:27:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19997362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YoyoString/pseuds/YoyoString
Summary: barricade day. grantaire has thoughts, and a harsh ending can be lined with softness, despite how little good it does after everything...





	never to delay the inevitable

**3 DAYS BEFORE:**

Like Jesus, Grantaire thinks to himself in mild hysterics, suddenly. Three days. Three days until the crucification. 

“It is suicidal,” he muses out loud to the chaotic room, full of revolutionaries shouting and drinking and toasting and planning and scheming their own deaths. “This is suicide.” 

Joly is the closest to him, watching everything with one hand on his cane and the other holding a bottle of rum that he occasionally raises with a cheer. He glances at Grantaire, almost puzzled. 

“Friends for so many years, R, and yet you still confuse me,” Joly tells Grantaire, thin voice audible over the ruckus. “How can this - these ideas of revolution, of overthrowing our corrupt government, and I _know_ that you know the lengths to which we work and the lengths that the royals have gone to in their corruption and mad evils, how does none of this sway you?” 

“It does not sway me because I live not in a cloud of idealism and clean revolution but in the truthfulness and coldness of reality,” Grantaire replies, watching Joly shrug and turn back to the others after a moment’s consideration. To himself, Grantaire continues, “It does not sway me because I know they will die, and you,” Fixing his eyes upon the Apollo gracing the room with bloodred words, caked in hatred; idealism shining from cold blue eyes; burning with passion founded on a lack of understanding, “will fall, and that is not something I can toast to.” 

The room lulls when Enjolras raises his own voice, yelling - “ - and the townspeople agree, finally they understand the dire situation of our great country - we are not the _monarchy,_ we are not the corrupt government on which the foundation of our nation is said to rest on; those are all lies, because our motherland is the citizens of France! France is the people, not the monarchy -” The great roaring starts up once again - only a dozen or so people in the room, supposedly quietly scheming away in this little bar, yet so loud, “ - and once we show the citizens and the monarchs _both_ that if the people unite against a poisoned government they will understand that France can _prosper_ outside the bounds of such evils! Let the blood of the rich and filthy, water the stones of Parisian streets! _Long live France!”_

While everyone yells, Grantaire throws back the rest of his brandy - very cheap and coarse on his tongue, as everything can’t help but be these days - and slinks to the bar, where he signals Eponine for another glass. 

To himself, again, “In three days, all my friends will die, and I do not know where I will be. A Christian story, indeed, although instead of the Son of God perishing on a cross, it will be idealistic revolutionaries bleeding out.” He thought, too drunken and saddened to speak anymore, albeit at that low mumble, that he wished he could believe it was the blood of the rich and filthy that would water the stones of Paris and not the blood of the idealistic and revolutionary. 

**2 DAYS BEFORE:**

Grantaire was much too hungover to only have drank the two glasses of whiskey that morning, even if it was all Eponine would offer him, dark scowl and a “ _why are you like this?_ ” as all that was offered when he pleaded a third. Stumbling up the stairs not because he was drunk (perhaps a little) but because of the unforgiving pains in his head (and in the rest of his being), he automatically beelined for the back room, past Bossuet and Joly murmuring quietly, past Combeferre and Courfeyrac huddled over more scrawled-down plans, past all these good people, he thought rather despairingly, who were carefully planning out their own suicides. 

To the back room, in a separate hallway, where he opened the door without knocking - careless of him - and stood and looked at Enjolras pacing the room, muttering, not looking up at Grantaire. 

“You plan your own death,” Grantaire says into the room, leaning on the doorframe. “And the deaths of you friends.” 

Enjolras stops, looks up at Grantaire with cold, pale eyes burning with incredible depth. “I plan a new dawn for our country.” When Grantaire does not respond, he says, “And what do you plan? Your regime for the next day of drinking, I imagine?” 

The contempt in Enjolras’s voice has never ceased to faze Grantaire. It is quite the vicious circle, this; Grantaire drinks of sadness, finds solace in the mere existence of Enjolras; Enjolras establishes that he finds Grantaire a disgusting and depressing thing; Grantaire wilts and falls; Grantaire drinks more to erase the ache of knowing that his Apollo hates him, furthermore disgusting Enjolras even more greatly. 

“If I’m being quite honest, those plans happen spontaneously rather than in an organized manner.” Some days, Grantaire thinks that maybe it is disbelief and disappointment in Enjolras’s voice instead of outright contempt. Most days, he knows he humors himself. 

Today is not most days. It is not even some days. 

Enjolras is silent for a few moments. Then, surprising Grantaire in the genuine curiosity that his question comes with, “Why is it exactly that you refuse to believe in this cause? You witness the passion with which the rest of us, your friends -” Grantaire has to force himself not to be caught on how Enjolras has just called himself, Grantaire’s _friend -_ “- do believe. And yet you still call us fools, ridiculing us, drinking while we plan and laughing every time I say something.” 

“I don’t laugh every time you say something,” Grantaire says, taken aback. “I do not believe not because I wish not to, but because I cannot imagine a world that is as perfect as you plan to create. The inherent nature of humans cannot exist without corruption and evil. Perhaps we could create a better society, but you must admit that they outnumber us many to few. It is the destiny of humans that we will destroy ourselves and chaos will emerge, and out of that, another imperfect society.” 

All the while speaking, Grantaire has watched Enjolras watching him, his face creasing more with every word. 

Had it not been the day before all his friends died, Grantaire would not have followed the urge to smooth out frowns from his face; it was not his lack of willpower that made him do it, for he had had the urge to touch Enjolras’s face for quite a while now, but instead the timing at which this opportunity arose. 

Enjolras does not seem disgusted when Grantaire walked forward and reached out his hands, tremulantly. He only seems surprised when Grantaire put his thumbs on his forehead, rests his hands gently so his fingers lay on his temples and over tied-back blonde hair and attempts to smooth out the lines on Enjolras’s forehead. This close to Enjolras, a golden revolutionary wading in red, Grantaire can tell he is hardly breathing. 

“I apologize,” Grantaire says very, very quietly, hands still in place, “but every time I speak to you, your face creates lines, and I’m afraid I put them there. It isn’t fair that I should be the one to marr your looks, although heaven knows you look just as much like an angel though you frown,” That last part is mumbled, a small expression of the poems he writes in his head about Enjolras’s looks; yet another lack of restraint situationally. 

There is a moment of no response, where all that Grantaire thinks of is how Enjolras’s last impression of Grantaire will be not only a drunk, but a drunk with no boundaries who acts more impulsively than is polite, and Grantaire is removing his hands. He is removing his hands and about to step back, apologies on his tongue, wondering how to right this situation - 

Enjolras grabs Grantaire’s wrists. 

It is strange. Most would say it would be more to grab his waist, or his shoulders, even, perhaps his hips or even his face, but it is the most intimate thing. To be grabbed by the wrists, and kissed. 

Enjolras doesn’t let go of Grantaire’s wrists, and they draw closer. It is not for very long, the kiss. It is not gentle, nor is it harsh, the kiss, because it is infused with the combined forces of hesitance and desperation. 

When they draw apart, Grantaire’s wrists still held by their sides, Enjolras stares into Grantaire’s eyes. His face has remained creased, Grantaire observes with dazed disappointment. His eyes are searching, the cold rage replaced with intent, desperation, confusion, _something_ and _everything._

“I believe in many things, yet you cannot see the world as I do,” Enjolras says. “I cannot understand you. But… you…” 

“I do not believe in many things,” Grantaire says back, nearly whispering. “I believe in the certainty of humanity’s fall. I believe in you.” 

A shuddering breath. Then Enjolras drops Grantaire’s wrists. Turns away. 

Grantaire stands there for too long before he leaves. 

**THE DAY**

Always by the wrist, a flick of cloth, a glancing look and a few cold words. 

Enjolras and Grantaire don’t touch much. 

Even the previous day, touching by lips and by hand and wrist. Burning cold, something Grantaire and now perhaps Enjolras as well, physical contact, this thing they have both longed for and failed to understand. 

It is cold, the morning of the revolution. Grantaire hasn’t drank himself into a splitting hangover, for once, because he drank so much that his hangover has failed to show and he is still in a depressing state of non-sobriety by the morning. He wakes with a start to the crashing of furniture - a pointless barricade in motion - and yelling, always yelling, outside. 

Combeferre is shrugging on a dark blue coat when Grantaire emerges from a side room, stumbling. They look at each other for a moment. 

“Will you join us today?” asks Combeferre. Careful. 

“You will have yourselves killed today,” replies Grantaire. Heart heavy, leaden limbs and the ringing of bullets seemingly already in his ears. 

There is a long moment where Combeferre seems to hesitate. Then, “If we die for a cause we believe in, then so be it.” And he leaves, coat sweeping, down the stairs to where the others set up their suicides. 

“You don’t understand,” Grantaire says aloud to the now-empty room, swaying on his feet, “You do not understand. It does not matter whether you live or die, to _you_ , but to those of us left behind… we watch you rise up and fall, and we have no choice but to allow you to fall, for this is the path you choose… the crucification of the Son of God, indeed…” 

He manages to make it over to a table before he collapses into a chair and begins to weep silently. 

It is to the cracking of rifles that he wakes up, and he wakes up in a blind panic, and his head aches with a force that he has never felt before, and before he truly understands his own actions he is stumbling down the stairs. 

Miraculously, he does not fall. When he reaches the bottom and turns the corner, he finds Enjolras, furiously fiddling with something on the table. 

“I,” is all Grantaire can say, blinking painfully at Enjolras, the red coat - is that a bloodstain? His, or others’? - blinding in its brightness, within the gloom of the room, and Enjolras, in all his glorious red and gold, turns to Grantaire. 

“You’ve been drunken,” Enjolras says, voice pained. “Upstairs. While we fight.” 

“Cowardly,” Grantaire agrees, head spinning. “I can do nothing but apologize.” 

Enjolras turns to leave without another word, evidently having done what he came to do - not to check on Grantaire, but to reload his rifle - and Grantaire lurches forward, and before Enjolras can react, wraps his arms around him from behind. 

Grantaire’s inferior height makes it so that his face is at Enjolras’s shoulders. 

“You are the only thing I believe in,” Grantaire says, into the space between Enjolras’s jutting bones, into the red coat that may or may not have bloodstains. “Please.” Don’t go. Don’t die. Don’t leave. “I beg of you.” Stay. Stay. Stay. 

“You believe in nothing but me, but I believe in a future,” Enjolras says, breathing coming in wrong bursts. “I cannot abandon my belief for you.” 

It is not anything that Grantaire did not know. But when Enjolras throws off Grantaire, and hurries outside to rejoin the battle, and Grantaire collapses onto the floor, it does not fail to hurt. 

Perhaps nothing hurts more than knowing that he could have prevented this, any of this, all of this. Grantaire sits on the floor, listening to cries and shouts and screams and gunfire and the barricade falling. His friends fall outside the door and he listens. 

Endless time passes until there is shouting, and the noises of death and chaos outside the door grow closer. He has gained enough sobriety to raise himself up, stumble up the stairs - and has gained himself enough of a hangover that he cannot go further than the table on the second floor, falling into a chair and putting his head in his arms, stunning himself in a grim hilarity with how insignificant his hangover is to perhaps the only people that matter to him, dying outside. 

And yet it renders him unable to move, flinching constantly with every sound, every yell and gunshot. His head pounds. The sounds grow closer. More desperate, more pained. 

Eventually his consciousness floats, adrift in a sea of pain and despair, and he becomes aware with only a sliver of his mind that the shouting has moved from outside the building to _inside_ the building, and then something - someone thumps up the stairs, heavy, terrified breathing and he hears a gasp - 

A hand brushes over his mess of black curls. A kiss to his temple, thumbs smoothing over his disgusting forehead, an imitation of the night before. 

Not a single word. The touch disappears and he has been mourning for days, weeks and months, and he is afraid the mourning will come to an end far too soon. 

There is clattering, presumably a gun that Enjolras is attempting to reload, and then a stompede up the stairs and so much shouting Grantaire is fully conscious - head and heart throbbing, but conscious - and he lays there, still, in the corner of the room at a table - and he is unnoticed. 

The words come into focus, once the shouting has died down and there is a single voice, and the following exchanging of words occurs: 

“He is the leader! It was he who slew the artillery-man. He has placed himself here, of his own volition - let him remain, and let us shoot him down on the spot!” 

“Shoot me.” A voice too familiar. 

The _world_ comes into focus. 

It is not noise that rouses a drunken man, but instead the lack thereof; silence. 

The cocking of too many rifles, and Grantaire is moving before he realizes it. 

A drunken stumble, the way he has went about for far too large of a fraction of his life. He is aware of all the guns instantly trained on him, and aware of the laughter and jeering that follows. 

“A drunk. Careful, traitor, you may catch something from him -” 

“That’s if the drunk doesn’t catch something from him first!” 

Uproarious, stupid laughter. 

Grantaire’s vision swims. He focuses in on Enjolras, Enjolras, Enjolras the way he has since the moment he saw this angel, this, this incredible - stupid, hopeful - 

“Do you permit it?” Grantaire is barely able to stand. But he tries to straighten his back, gazes painfully at his Apollo, standing on a windowsill, a red flag in hand and not a sun behind him but grey skies, and all the more glorious for how he shines, dirty and beautiful and triumphant somehow, a requiem playing through Grantaire’s head that he heard from a street busker once long ago - faster, the bow moving faster than it ever should have for a requiem, people looking on in disapproval but grudging awe, the talent that came with this disgrace - impolite, disrespectful, really, but beautiful - 

Again, wordless. 

Enjolras is a person who was the most full of words anyone could have ever seen in the world - bursting with them, _burning_ with them, spilling over and constantly weaving them together - a furious prose, every time he speaks - but now he presses his hand into Grantaire’s outstretched one - when had Grantaire done that? - and smiles. 

Free, both of them. _All_ of them. 

His smile is not finished when his body convulses with so many gunshots that probably isn’t that many since Grantaire loses count after the third, and he has only enough time to be flooded with such deep, terrible and awful despair at the reality of this, _him,_ dying, and sadness that he had not gone first so he would not have had to experience such a thing, before he follows. 

Of course, he crumples. 

On a terrible June 5th, 1832, Enjolras, a revolutionary, somehow manages to stay upright against a wall with eight bullets through him, eyes closed in rest. There is still a smile on his face, splashed with blood though it is. At his feet is splayed Grantaire, a drunk though that is not all he is, and a revolutionary all the same, eyes open. 

No one bothers to count how many times the latter has been shot. 

Grantaire would have felt that this lines up perfectly with his ideas of humanity. 

_Viva la revolución._

**Author's Note:**

> i will say now i've only read excerpts of the brick, never the whole thing through :( i know i'm a fake fan, etc, etc, although guess what? i don't care  
> i hope you enjoyed by bullshit ramblings? i am SO soft for wrist-grabbing before kissing and hugging from behind with SAD heavy eyes. goodness i love these boys despite how i hurt them


End file.
